A lipo-polymeric hybrid nanosystem with metal enhanced fluorescence for targeted imaging of metastatic breast cancer.

Cancer metastasis plays a major role in failure of therapeutic avenues against cancer. Owing to metastasis, nearly 70-80% of stage IV breast cancer patients lose their lives. Nanodrug delivery systems are playing a critical role in the therapy of metastatic cancer in the recent times. This paper reports the enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) based targeting of metastatic breast cancer using a novel nano lipo-polymeric system (PIR-Au NPs). The PIR-Au NPs demonstrated an increase in fluorescence by virtue of surface coating with gold, owing to the metal enhanced fluorescence phenomenon as reported in our earlier reports. Enhanced fluorescence of PIR-Au NPs was observed in murine mammary carcinoma cell line (4T1), as compared to free IR780 or IR780 loaded nanosystems (P-IR NPs), when incubated for same time at same concentrations, indicating its potential application for imaging and an enhanced bioavailability of IR780. Significant cell death was noted with photothermal mediated cytotoxicity in-vitro against breast cancer cells (MCF-7 and 4T1). An enhanced fluorescence was observed in the zebra fish embryos incubated with PIR-Au NPs. The enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect was seen with PIR-Au NPs in-vivo. A strong fluorescent signal was recorded in mice injected with PIR-Au NPs. The tumor tissue collected after 72 h, clearly showed a greater fluorescence as compared to other groups, indicating the plasmon enhanced fluorescence. We also demonstrated the EPR-based targeting of the PIR-Au NPs in-vivo by means of photothermal heat. This lipo-polymeric hybrid nanosystem could therefore be successfully applied for image-guided, passive-targeting to achieve maximum therapeutic benefits.

Role of FGF-18 in Bone Regeneration.

In tissue engineering, three key components are cells, biological/mechanical cues, and scaffolds. Biological cues are normally proteins such as growth factors and their derivatives, bioactive molecules, and the regulators of a gene. Numerous growth factors such as VEGF, FGF, and TGF-ß are being studied and applied in different studies. The carriers used to release these growth factors also play an important role in their functioning. From the early part of the 1990s, more research has beenconductedon the role of fibroblast growth factors on the various physiological functions in our body. The fibroblast growth factor family contains 22 members. Fibroblast growth factors such as 2, 9, and 18 are mainly associated with the differentiation of osteoblasts and in bone regeneration. FGF-18 stimulates the PI3K/ERK pathway and smad1/5/8 pathway mediated via BMP-2 by blocking its antagonist, which is essential for bone formation. FGF-18 incorporated hydrogel and scaffolds had showed enhanced bone regeneration. This review highlights these functions and current trends using this growth factor and potential outcomes in the field of bone regeneration.